Will Wonders Ever Cease?

Since the air was still and cool early this morning, I opted to get in my bike ride first and then visit Estabrook later, after the day had warmed up a bit. Once I finally arrived, I didn’t want to trek across the soccer fields in the hot sun, so I took the nice-and-shady Oak Leaf Trail north toward the pond. There are a couple of nice patches of bee balm growing beside the trail, so I had a hope of spotting more snowberry clearwings, and they did not disappoint.

At the pond, I searched in vain for our young visitor, the black-crowned night heron, but couldn’t find it. Instead, here’s a great blue heron preening over the eastern shore.

Then I headed to the river, and hiked up to the north end where I was stunned to spot this trio glistening in the sun on the far shore. Holy Softshell Turtles, Batman! Those look like softshell turtles! The river is a couple hundred yards wide at that point, and the far shore is well beyond the reach of my camera, so I did what had to be done: hike up to the bridge at Port Washington Road, cross over the river, and come down the other side for a closer look.

On my way, I came across this butterfly, which I momentarily thought might be something new and exotic, such as a longwing butterfly, but it turns out to be “just” a roughed up female eastern black swallowtail, similar to the one I saw at the Shorewood Fitness Center a week and a half ago.

I eventually approached the turtles, and since I was now on the same, steep riverbank as they were, I didn’t have a very good shot, but it is good enough to see “a row of spines along the front edge of the carapace” on the big one in the middle. That makes them spiny softshell turtles (Apalone spinifera) and the first ones I believe I’ve ever seen in the wild. Yee Haw! That’s only the fifth reptile I’ve managed to photograph in Estabrook Park.

At that point, I figured it would be a shorter walk home if I continued south and crossed back east at Capital Drive, so that’s what I did. Barely 20 yards from the turtles, I saw this pretty red admiral on a purple cone flower.

About half way to the south end, there were a few of these pretty pink blossoms beside the trail in the shade, and they appear to be either musk-mallow (Malva moschata) or pink mallow (Malva alcea), but there is a lot of variety in the shape of the petals and the leaves in the images I can find online. I saw something similar back in 2021, but had no better luck pinning down and ID.

And that’s it for today. I wonder what we’ll see tomorrow?!?!